


Strawberry Girl

by Sookiestark



Series: He Who Tastes Love Never Dines Alone [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Strawberries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:42:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22615042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sookiestark/pseuds/Sookiestark
Summary: Lady Alys Turnberry Pryor in her garden after receiving a letter
Relationships: Alys Turnberry/Dustan Pryor, Alys Turnberry/Roy Connington, Alys Turnberry/Saera Targaryen
Series: He Who Tastes Love Never Dines Alone [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1279793
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Strawberry Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Strawberries have long been associated with love. When I started thinking about writing this story, I was unsure who I might write about but I quickly started to think about Alys Turnberry. House Turnberry's sigil is a strawberry and the Sweetberry name that Saera gave her was perfect. It is a sad story but maybe it didn't end so badly for Alys.

Lords, won't you tarry  
to taste My sweet berry?  
My strawberry girl….

It is a song from her youth that will sometimes creep up upon her while she is in her garden. When she came to this place, barely more than a girl, her husband told her to not expect much from the garden. “The Pebble is a rocky windswept place and plants do not thrive here. Gardens do not grow."

However, she could not give up on it. Laboring tirelessly, she worked on the garden in those first years. Now ten years later, Alys has a garden to shade her and give her respite when she needs it. She is surprised anything grows in such rocky soil and the sea winds. But things do grow, even here. In the afternoon, she comes to weed the garden and tend to the plants and herbs here. One day when her children are older, she thinks she may bring her daughters here and teach them plant and herb lore. 

Lavender for sleep  
Chamomile for headaches  
Comfrey to heal

Spicy peppers for desire  
Rosemary for remembrance  
Salt for protection  
Potatoes for sustenance  
Strawberries for love..

She sees three small red berries growing and plucks them. Gathering her skirts, Alys Pryor sits on a bench and thinks to herself.

Strawberries are unprotected. Their sweet red fruit laid bare to any predator who wishes to devour them. At least, raspberries have thorns. 

Inside her pocket is a letter from Lady Perianne Mooton. She read it once this morning at breakfast while her husband, Lord Dunstan ate his porridge. He had asked politely, "What does Lady Mooton write?"

"She says her boys grow like weeds. She says the harvest has been good."

Her husband speaks, musing future plans. "Perhaps, we might arrange a marriage with little Perri and their heir, Jon."

Dunstan does not notice that she seemed a bit quieter. After all, there is so much quietness between them. Alys came to the garden because it is her space. 

Her husband is a quiet man, older than her. Sometimes, she thinks he is made more of stone than flesh and blood. He does not like dancing or gambling, drinking or loose women. He eats simple foods and does not spend extravagantly, Of course, being the Lord of the Pebble does not guarantee a generous income. Lord Dunstan Pryor barely spoke to her when she arrived at the keep. He could not even spare a smile. Instead, he spoke, "You will do."

Alys did what his other two wives did not. It was she who survived childbirth and gave him sons, three boys in as many years and a girl for good measure. He loves our children but he is hard like the stony island they live on. Lord Dunstan's only love is fishing and his small fishing ship. When she was new to this place, Alys would comfort herself with the thought that he might be a better fisherman than a lord. He is nothing like any man she had met before. 

She had once loved a man of flesh and a woman, as well. She wonders if the staff snickers behind her back as the did when she first came here. The Pebble is faraway from the King’s Court but scandal travels faster than wildfire burns. Or is all forgotten now that she is the faithful pale lady of the Pebble. 

Once she had been called a trull, a red-haired whore, a vapid and vain girl. The Grand Maester called her this but so did her mother. Alys can remember the tone of her mother's voice when she spoke those words, still even after a decade. Her mother never spoke to her again. Mother has been dead for seven years now.

She did not think of herself as a whore, not then, not now. She had loved Peri as if she was a sister. She had loved Saera and wanted to please her. But, she had been wildly in love with Roy. Red Roy Connington. Beesbury had teased him that he could not grow a beard yet. Beesbury was handsome and strong and everything stories told them knights were. All the ladies loved Beesbury. Braxton Beesbury only had eyes for Saera. Jonah Mooton, the heir to Maidenpool, was a follower and almost as in love with Braxton Beesbury as Peri was. But for Alys, Roy had been the only one she had thought of. She was certain he had loved her. Truth be told, she had mostly laid with Red Roy.

The truth of it was Alys had loved Saera most of all and slept with whoever Saera chose for her. But she had preferred Roy. Their whole circle of friends had worshipped Princess Saera. Alys had wondered if Saera had ever loved him at all. Sometimes, when no one else was looking, Alys would watch the way Saera would look at all of them. Sometimes, Alys felt a chill on her soul for it seemed to her Saera thought they were all her toys to play with as she wished.

Alys does not really think she will ever understand what Saera was thinking. At the time, Alys thought that Saera had not been loved enough being the ninth. But now, Alys thinks all the love in the world would not fill the emptiness behind Saera Targaryen's violet eyes.

When the games had started, Saera had given Peri the name Pretty Perry. But Alys had gotten Sweet Berry. The nickname had always made her blush. At first, the connotation that she was a fruit that could be eaten, a tasty delight, had been too much for her maiden sensibilities. But as the games grew in intensity and intimacy, it was the other meanings that made her blush.

Each of the boys thought that they were Saera's true love and the others were just her playthings. But Alys knew the truth of it. They were all Saera's playthings, drunk in her beauty and the lustful games they played. Once Saera made her taste her fingers, one at a time. Saera's lips were red and bruised from the kissing and Ron was on the other side, all naked in the sheets of the Princess' bed. Saera spoke, "How sweet you taste, Alys, as sweet as any berry. Taste it. Suck my fingers. Show Ron."

Red-faced, Alys had sucked the finger that Saera pushed in her mouth. Then, Saera sang that song to Ron, "Lords, won't you tarry to taste my sweet berry? My strawberry girl." 

Ron had sucked all Saera's fingers and kissed Alys all over. Saera had joined in into Alys thought she would explode.

She had loved Saera. They all had. You could not help but love her.

The letter in her pocket is Lady Mooton telling her that Roy Connington is dead. He has died in Essos. There are whispers Perrianne stated of a faceless man sent by the Royal Family to make him pay for their daughters fall from the court but Perrianne has always been given to flights of fancy.

Alys thinks of her daughter being raised by her brother in the westerlands. Her name is Sara, Sara Hill. She has a locket around her throat. In it is a small picture of a red-haired girl, her daughter who she had at the Motherhouse. Her good sister writes that she is a good girl, who will be eleven soon. Alys had thought to write to Roy when the baby was born and tell him the girl had red hair. But her good sister had stopped her. Alys had a dream that he would come to the motherhouse and claim her before she was wed and sent to this stony island and her husband.

But Roy never came and her good sister took the child back to the west to be a Hill in her brother's house. 

Alys had always thought she would cry. The cold wind is sharp but she feels little except the cold. Maybe her stone-faced husband has grown on her. Maybe the sound of her sons fishing on the dock with her husband makes the sorrow less. Maybe, she has cried all the tears for her daughter, the daughter he denied, just as he denied her.

It is Duston who comes to her in the gardens. He sits on the bench beside. The sun pushes from behind the cloud cover and she feels the sun on her face. Offering him a strawberry from her hand. Thoughtfully he takes one and munches it in a few sparse bites. "Mmmm.." he says, "They are sweet. Good job, Alys. I never thought you'd get anything to grow but you did"

He takes her hand and they sit in the sun of the garden she built. 

Lavender for sleep  
Chamomile for headaches  
Comfrey to heal

Spicy peppers for desire  
Rosemary for remembrance  
Salt for protection  
Potatoes for sustenance  
Strawberries for love..

Strawberry for love

Lords, won't you tarry  
to taste My sweet berry?  
My strawberry girl….


End file.
